2016

Photo by Bill Putnam, used with permission.

By my count, 2016 saw ten contemporary war fiction titles published, one more than in 2015. 2017 promises new novels by David Abrams, Siobhan Fallon, Elliot Ackerman, and Brian Van Reet, as well as a short-fiction anthologyedited by Brian Castner and Adrian Bonenberger called The Road Ahead, so that’s a lot to anticipate. The only new poetry collection published in 2016 was a British anthology titled Home Front that reprints two great books authored by American military spouses—Elyse Fenton’s Clamor and Jehanne Dubow’s Stateside—alongside work by two British authors, Bryony Doran and Isabel Palmer. Happy to say, both Dubrow and Fenton will have new work appearing in 2017, titled Dots & Dashes and Sweet Insurgent, respectively. Hollywood released three Iraq or Afghanistan movies in 2016; 2017 will bring the movie adaptation of The Yellow Birds, but I’m not sure what else.

Below is my annual compendium of Iraq and Afghanistan war fiction, poetry, and movies. Works appearing in 2016 are in bold. If you think I’ve missed anything let me know. A separate list of romance, male adventure, and young adult fiction is in the works.

I’ve not listed the important theatrical and literary memoir titles that I’ve included in past years, because I haven’t tracked them as closely in the past twelve months as I have previously. To make up for that omission, I’ve compiled a list of interesting and substantial contemporary war non-fiction books published in 2016, which in my mind was a banner year for such works.

2016 Iraq and Afghanistan Non-fiction

Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Middle East (2016) Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon (2016) Brian Castner, All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade and the Hunt for His Killer (2016) Eric Fair, Consequence: A Memoir (2016) Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (2016) David J. Morris, The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2016) Mary Roach, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016) J. Kael Weston, The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan (2016)

…and not to overlook two books that offer glimpses of the strategic thinking and worldviews of the leaders of newly-elected President Trump’s national security team:

Kori Schake and Jim Mattis, editors, Warriors and Citizens: American Views of the Military (2016) Michael Flynn, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies (2016)

I haven’t yet read all the non-fiction named above, but one that impressed me greatly is Brian Castner’s All the Ways We Kill and Die. Castner, for my money, gets the nitty-gritty of Iraq and Afghanistan combat—complete with accounts of mIRC communication systems, combined ground-air ops, and insurgent IED tactics—better than any work I’ve seen previously. He combines attention to detail with eloquent expression of what it means to belong to close-knit organizations of fighting men and women. Castner, who served three tours in the Middle East as an Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, knows of what he writes, and he uses his narrative to interrogate his decade-long obsession with war’s allure and consequences.

I read All the Ways We Kill and Die alongside a second work that does much the same, but from a very different angle: Hilary Plum’s memoir Watchfires (2016). The follow-up to Plum’s intriguing novel about domestic anti-war radicalism They Dragged Them Through the Streets(2013), Watchfires explores connections between Plum’s personal and familial experience of illness and dysfunction with national and global currents of war, terrorism, and aggression. “Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life,” wrote Thoreau, and though Plum’s account is not simple, she seems to have accomplished in Watchfires what Castner has also done, and what every thinking person might try, according to Thoreau: define honestly and precisely how one’s private life and thoughts relate to the violent spirit of the times.

Brian Castner, All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer. Arcade, 2016.

4 Comments on “2016”

What a yeoman’s job of cataloging all these, Peter. Thank you much. Despite the “diminishing returns” aspect of sheer numbers published, there is some significant quality out there this year, as you say/- e.g., Castner, Brechard, Morris. This archiving is such a necessary job. Thanks for your work. Jeff Loeb

Thanks, Jeff. The notion of “diminishing returns” is an interesting one. I’d have to say the publishing industry has been more generous than not in publishing war titles, given what must be a not very satisfying sales record and minimal mass cultural impact. I’m about resigned to an “influence” model of success as opposed to a “popularity” model in regard to the field. Still, the best might be yet to come and the next four years certainly should work interesting permutations on the look and shape of war-writing.

Pete,
Coming from a blog that is consistently valuable, this posting stands out. Thanks for this effort.
I have already printed it out and sent it to my colleague. The two of us were talking about building a “war/vet lit of the last 5 years” course just yesterday…
Your work in this field is invaluable.
-Jim

Jim, thanks much–I appreciate it especially coming from you. Thanks for all you do as the head of the University of Missouri-Saint Louis’s Department of Military and Veterans Studies department. FYI, I will be writing about the field of veterans studies soon.